To all workers of the Kineshma district. Comrade workers,
the rich in the villages of the producing gubernias are
hoarding huge stocks of grain and not giving them up for the
starving workers. The rich prefer to sell grain at exorbitant
speculative prices, which only the city bourgeoisie can
pay, but not the poor, starving population. While
speculating in grain, the rich seek to speculate also in the goods
they receive in exchange for grain. The city bourgeoisie
is agitating for the abolition of the grain monopoly and
fixed prices, and for freedom to trade in grain. The
bourgeoisie is passing from agitation to provocation; it is
skilfully and surreptitiously inciting the starving workers to
demonstrations, disturbances and disorders, while
endeavouring to seize power in its own hands. The Council of
People’s Commissars is exerting every effort in the
struggle to uphold the grain monopoly, in the absence of which
only the bourgeoisie will prosper while the poor will be
left without any grain at all. Comrade workers, do not
give way to the provocation of the dark forces, do not play
into the hands of the bourgeoisie and the counter–
revolutionaries who want to make cat’s-paws of you and destroy
all the gains of the revolution. Do not disorganise the hard
work of obtaining grain for you by thoughtless actions on
your part and independent exchange of goods. The Council
of People’s Commissars is now exchanging goods for grain
on a vast scale; it has begun requisitioning grain stocks
from the village bourgeoisie by means of armed
detachments. If you want to help, to co-operate with your workers’
and peasants’ government, act in an organised way: select
from among you those who are most familiar with the food
business for work in the Soviet food supply bodies, recruit
fighting detachments of honest, incorruptible, steadfast
revolutionaries, true champions of the interests of the
workers and peasants. Immediately detain provocators and
agents of the counter-revolution and deliver them to
Moscow. Bear firmly in mind: either we extricate ourselves
from all our unprecedented difficulties in an organised way,
and with honour, or everything is inevitably doomed, to
complete ruin. There is no other alternative. In the
expectation of speedy results from these measures, the Council
of People’s Commissars asks you, comrade workers, to
display revolutionary self-discipline and political alertness in
order to save the gains of the revolution and ensure the
triumph, of the proletarian dictatorship.